On 12 Mar 2010, at 14:33, Ozgur Akgun wrote:
>>> On 12 March 2010 14:28, Thomas Davie <tom.davie at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 12 Mar 2010, at 14:25, Salil Wadnerkar wrote:
>>> On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 10:21 PM, Ozgur Akgun <ozgurakgun at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Another boring variant from me then.
>>>>>> isHomogeneous xs = all (first==) xs
>>> where first = head xs
>>>>>> Shouldn't
>> head xs
>> give an exception on an empty list?
>> An error, and only if it's evaluated. Lazy evaluation means it's not evaluated here.
>> Of course another non-strict algorithm *might* evaluate head xs here, so this version won't work in all possible Haskell implementations, only the current ones which use lazy evaluation.
>> Bob
>>> So we need to make sure our code would work in a strict environment, even though we are using a lazily evaluated language, just in case if someone comes up with a not-that-lazy implementation of haskell?
>> If I was thinking this way, I would just stop using haskell at all.
Not quite, you need to make sure your code works in *all* non-strict evaluation models. Lazy evaluation is not the only non-strict evaluation method, another implementation of non-strict semantics might actually evaluate head xs.
Bob
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